Overview
From the 2nd to the 5th of December 2019, the genSTEM team ran a set of STEM workshops using Kitsi™ blocks with two grade five and two six classes from Mango Hill State School. Each session ran for approximately one hour and aimed to inspire the students, spark their curiosity and show them the potential that the Kitsi™ Blocks hold. To this end, students were shown the power of electronics and what they themselves can do with sensors, servos, and motors. Key elements that assisted in this aim were a remote-controlled car and a robotic hand.
Format
The sessions were run by rotating the students around a number of stations where they could interact with, program and use different features of the Kitsi™ Blocks. The driving reason for the different groups was mainly to ensure that different groups could work at different paces, allowing for students to not be waiting around for further instructions.
The key activities that the students participated in were:
- A robotic hand known as Steve
- A remote-controlled car known as Toby
- An animation project
- Gathering data from sensors
- Utilising the ‘virtual blocks’ in Kitsunei™ Creator
- Playing sounds when certain conditions were reached
A key feature of the robotic hand that allowed to further engage the students was that it doubled as a lesson on how a hand actually works. The fishing wire in the hand that pulls the fingers down works similar to tendons, this was explained to the students while they were programming the hand to actually work.
Feedback
At the end of each session, the students were presented with a feedback form, the form can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/yx769j93. The students were asked to fill the form in and then the genSTEM team collected them. After each day the data was entered into a Google Forms document, the results from each day and overall can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/vrbeo38.
Survey results
Overall eighty-two responses were received from the students, and the results were extremely positive with a significant majority of the students indicating that they enjoyed the workshops.
The students were further prompted to share their favourite part of the session and favourite project on the feedback forms, the full range of responses can be seen in the survey results. A reflection of the key comments received from students can be seen in the word cloud.
The favourite project was Steve the hand, seen below, where the students used servos to move the fingers and make the hand wave. After the hand came Toby and the email sender. Toby was a remote-controlled car that the students learnt to program, with a few groups also making Toby autonomous, while the email sender was used with some groups to send emails.
Recommendations for improvements
Future workshops
For future workshops, we recommend maintaining the group structure and rotating the project material rather than the students. This would allow for the projects to be more in-depth as per the extra time. A further project that could be added would be programming an autonomous crane that can pick up and move blocks or something similar. This could be concluded near the end of the session with a competition between the groups to combine what they have learnt from the car and crane activities to make a remote-controlled car with a crane on top to move different objects. This could further be achieved with the autonomous car project through a similar system with more advanced students or if time allowed.
Feedback survey form
Ideally, the feedback form would be simplified with a view to removing redundant questions. The form could also benefit from focusing more on the unique value proposition that Kitsi™ blocks provide, along with the quality of the user experience.
Further, a second feedback form designed especially for teachers should be provided to solicit and retain the valuable feedback and suggestions that this highly specialised group can provide.
Summary / Conclusions
The key aim of the Kitsi™ sessions was to inspire and spark curiosity in the students, while simultaneously giving them valuable knowledge and experience with both the blocks and electronics in general. To this end, the sessions were extremely successful, with positive feedback being received from the students. In future sessions, the structure would be changed slightly to better utilise the available time and resources.
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